I would like to introduce you to iRobot's latest prototype: a new telepresence robot named AVA that was unveiled this week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2011) -- see the video below.  Through AVA, iRobot intends to explicitly leverage the proliferation of tablets / smart phones and their associated app stores.  They intend to furnish actuation (mobile base, pan-tilt unit, telescoping linear actuator spine, etc.), a sensor suite (including sonar, laser, and a depth camera like Microsoft's Kinect), and basic robot software (eg. obstacle avoidance, mapping, and direct physical interfaces).  Meanwhile, you provide the brains in the form of a tablet (eg. iPad or Android).  In theory, this should open up mobile robot application development to a much broader audience, creating the oft-discussed robot app store.  When combined with the recent announcement of the Scooba 230 floor cleaning robot (which I will certainly purchase), I would say iRobot is still innovating!

A few weeks ago, my labmates from Georgia Tech's Healthcare Robotics Lab presented a paper at IROS 2010 entitled, "Towards an Assistive Robot that Autonomously Performs Bed Baths for Patient Hygiene."  Their work used Cody, a robot with compliant arms, and a specialized "bath mitt" end effector to perform wiping motions that could clean selected areas of an actual person's body, including the upper arm, forearm, thigh, and leg.  In this robotic cleaning task, the robot initiated and actively made contact with a human.  The psychological impact of such robot-initiated contact is an interesting question -- one I believe will be important for future healthcare and human-robot interaction (HRI) tasks.  Read on for a video and discussion by the authors.

Yesterday Georgia Tech's PR2 robot made a LIVE appearance on CNN.  The event was accompanied by interviews of Dr. Charlie Kemp (director of Georgia Tech's Healthcare Robotics Lab and my advisor) and Keenan Wyrobek (Willow Garage figurehead).  Travis Deyle (yours truly) was also present and responsible for the robot demonstration.  While some of the PR2's movements (some driving, waving to the audience, etc) were scripted or teleoperated via joystick, the actual medication delivery demonstration was fully autonomous and used UHF RFID sensing (a major component of my PhD research), the base laser rangefinder, and a slightly-modified TrajectoryPlannerROS.  The demo went off without a hitch, and as Keenan mentioned on the PR2-Users mailing list, "Their demo is a milestone (albeit a gutsy one) for PR2.  The first nationally televised, LIVE, sensor-based demo with a PR2."  Check out the video (embedded below), as well as some behind-the-scenes pictures of the PR2 inside CNN's studio.

There is an interesting article in the Seattle Times about former Microsoft robotics evangelist, Tandy Trower, launching a new startup named Hoaloha Robotics.  His goal is to create a $5k-10k personal robot (aka mobile manipulator) in the next five-to-ten years that can address the needs of older adults, such as telepresence activities and other healthcare tasks.  Hoping to leverage cheap 3D sensing (like depth cameras a la Microsoft's Kinect) and inexpensive computing, this one-man (so far) company is another entrant in a new, budding market.  Having been personally involved with the design, construction, programming, and brief home-deployment of a mobile manipulator (EL-E), I can confidently say that Tandy & co. have a lot of work cut out for themselves -- I wish them luck and success.

Two weeks ago, Engadget / CrunchGear posted videos of RAPUDA (Robotic Arm for Persons with Upper limb DisAbilities) from AIST's Intelligent Systems Research Institute -- a wheelchair-mounted, light-weight robot arm with a prominent telescoping link that was demonstrated grasping a cup from a table, lifting the cup for drinking, and grasping an object from the floor via teleoperation (video embedded below).  Given my proclivity for clever mechanisms, I wanted details about the telescoping link, specifically to determine how it compares to the Geosystems Situational Awareness Mast (aka Zippermast).  Well, I found what I was looking for: a Japanese patent application for "Linearly Moving Extendable Mechanism and Robot Arm Equipped with Linearly Moving Extendable Mechanism."  Basically, the telescoping segment consists of a series of small interlocking modules that are expelled (or reeled-in) through the "shoulder" link.  Check out the pictures -- cool stuff!

I recently became aware of an effort by ISO (International Organization for Standardization) to define a standard for domestic service robots -- more specifically, ISO-13482 "Safety requirements for non-medical personal care robots."  I must confess having mixed feelings about this development.  On one hand, it is exciting that the personal robotics revolution is near-enough at hand to warrant the definition of a standard -- there are many standards for industrial robots (eg. ISO-10218 and ISO-9409), but none for domestic personal robots.  On the other hand, I'm a bit concerned that a somewhat-binding international standard is being developed prematurely and in a rather closed-door fashion -- issues upon which I will elaborate below.  Thankfully, there will be plenty of discussion at IROS 2010 (Taipei, Taiwan in mid-October) at the "Workshop on Standardization for Service Robots."  Lack of resources will likely preclude my attendance, so perhaps someone can fill us in after the fact...?

Back in October 2009, Colin Angle spoke at TEDMED 2009.  It was a big announcement: IRobot was launching a new healthcare robotics business unit to be led by Tod Loofbourrow.  Their ambitious goal:  add 1 million years to users' lifetimes through robotic assistance.  Some good synopses of the talk were posted, but videos of the event were elusive... until now.  Below you can find the full video of Colin's talk and some points that I think are particularly poignant.